


A Bird in the Hand

by Poppelganger



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Carrier Pigeons, Codes & Ciphers, Espionage, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-15
Packaged: 2018-04-12 10:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4475147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poppelganger/pseuds/Poppelganger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Getting into a fight with Eren for the umpteenth time lands Jean an assignment at Wall Rose's pigeon post as punishment, where he meets the daughter of a garrison soldier and learns more than he ever wanted to about pigeons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It had started, as usual, with Jean getting mad about something stupid Eren had said. They'd been passing each other in the barracks, Armin glued to Eren's side and Marco and Connie keeping pace with Jean. He can't even remember now exactly what Eren said, but their eyes met for the briefest of moments before Jean had his hand fisted in the collar of Eren's shirt and the other boy was glaring up at him, daring him to be the first one to throw a punch. Armin squeaked out something undecipherable and Marco tried to tell Jean that it wasn't worth getting in a fight over, but Eren's face had been infuriating as he taunted, "Yeah, Jean, it's not worth it."

Jean Kirstein does not, has not, and will never be the kind of person to back down. Eren was momentarily stunned into silence when he stumbled back from the punch to the face, but he recovered almost immediately, looking at Jean with wild eyes that told him he'd made a terrible mistake.

By the time Armin had come back with Shadis, Marco and Connie had long given up on trying to pull them apart, the latter sporting a black eye for his trouble. Shadis didn't look surprised; he strode forward, pulled Jean off of Eren and slammed him against the wall, holding him there with a forearm across his collar, and kept Eren down with a boot over his chest. "Are you boys about done?" he asked, glare shifting between them as they refused to look at one another. He glanced back at the bystanders. "Who started it?"

Connie's mouth remained firmly shut when Jean's eyes found his from over Shadis' shoulder, promising hell if he said a word. Marco, however, wasn't intimidated. "Jean threw the first punch, sir," he said.

"Traitor," Jean seethed, falling silent when Shadis' glare turned on him.

"I told you punks last time I wouldn't put up with any more of your bullshit," he said, glancing at Eren. "Jeager, I don't care what you were doing before. You've got stable duty now, and tomorrow, and the rest of the week. Kiss your downtime goodbye."

Eren muttered a, "yes, sir," smart enough by now to know that arguing with Shadis was a terrible idea.

"And Kirstein, since you started it, you're going to spend all of your free time for the next week at the garrison's pigeon loft."

Jean's eyes widened. "The  _what?_ " he sputtered.

Shadis' eyes narrowed. "You heard me just fine." He let them both go. "I've got more important things to do than babysit you two, so you'd better get moving. If I hear you didn't show up for duty or spent the whole time messing around, you will be publicly flogged. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir."

As Shadis walked away, Jean threw one last dirty look at Eren, but Marco dragged him the other way, muttering, "Don't even think about it."

* * *

Jean heard the military's most embarrassing post assignment before he saw it. A quiet mutter of pigeon coos rose to a dull murmur as he approached, a few birds loitering in the afternoon sun outside of the coop. Resembling a miniature trading post, the pigeon coop was a wooden structure painted bright red, situated behind the garrison offices in a grassy yard. Jean stepped over a bird strutting in his path, approaching a garrison soldier with a stack of parchments in his hands, leaning against one of the coop walls.

"Excuse me," he called.

The soldier looked up from his clipboard, eyes lighting up. "Ah," he said, "You must be the new volunteer. Shadis told me to expect you."

 _Volunteer,_  Jean thought, inwardly laughing,  _Riiiiiiight._

"Well, head on in," the soldier said, handing the papers to him, "The post captain will be in charge of you as long as you're here."

"What exactly do I do?" Jean tried to ask, but the man was already walking away, probably in a hurry to get as far away from the coop as possible. Jean took a deep breath, swallowed his pride, and opened the door.

There were birds everywhere, heads bobbing as they paraded around the coop floor, nesting in cube-shaped dens built into the walls, and a few clustered around the feet of a woman on the far end of the coop with her back turned to him. She was wearing a dress rather than a soldier's uniform, and she had her hair tied up in a bun. "I'm looking for the, uh," Jean paused, "post captain?"

"Post captain?" the woman repeated, turning around. Jean was startled to find that they were around the same age. Her surprise gave way to amusement and she covered up her laughter with one hand; the other was holding a pigeon. "Is that what they're calling me now?"

Jean just stared blankly.

"You're the new volunteer, right?" she asked, stepping over the pigeons strutting around without having to even look down. "I'm Elle. It's nice to meet you. And I guess you can call me the "post captain," if you want, but it sounds kind of silly."

"Jean," he introduced himself, offering a hand, and she took it, shaking firmly. "So what exactly do you do around here?"

"Lots of things," Elle told him with a smile, "I take care of the pigeons, decode messages, and forward information to the capital." She passed him for the grid of pigeon nests in the wall, setting the pigeon in her hand into one of the cubes, where it settled into its nest. When Elle gestured for him to come over, Jean did as he was asked. "Look there," she said, pointing at the bird she'd just set down, "That's Samson. He's very old, but he's bright, and he's been instrumental in our battle against the Titans."

Samson was noticeably larger than many of the other birds, and he had some sort of crusty growth on top of his beak. He was colored in splotches of gray and white, looking a bit like somebody had splattered paint on him, and had tiny orange eyes.

Jean's first question was actually,  _"You name the birds?"_ but instead he asked the second thing that came to mind. "He's a bird," he said, looking down into Samson's beady little eyes, "How does he fight Titans?"

"He doesn't fight," Elle corrected, smiling excitedly as though sharing a secret, "When the Survey Corps ventures out, he goes with them, and he brings us whatever notes they make. Samson has brought back valuable information on Titan behavior and physiology long before the soldiers returned." She reached into the box, stroking his feathered head, and the pigeon made a soft, pleased coo. "When there's danger, they send him back early with the data they've collected, just in case nobody comes back alive. He's practically an honorary member of the Survey Corps." Abruptly, she stopped petting the bird and looked at Jean curiously. "Are you aiming for the Survey Corps, too?"

"Uh. No," he said, "Military Police, actually."

"Oh," Elle said, and even though she was still smiling, she sounded somewhat disappointed. Jean tried not to be offended. "Well, that's okay, too. While you're here, you'll help me take care of the pigeons," she said, voice notably lacking the enthusiasm from before. "They need food and water twice a day, so you'll handle one of the feeding periods. You'll also need to scrape out waste, once when you get here and once before you leave. Keeping out drafts and making sure it stays dry in here is important; if the coop needs repairs, you'll handle that, as well."

Jean grimaced. At the very least, he knew Eren would be shoveling horse shit right about now, but the pigeon post was such an embarrassing assignment he knew he wouldn't live it down for weeks.

"…and Felix is getting on in years, so his eyesight isn't the best, so if he doesn't go for the food right away, you might," Elle abruptly stopped, and Jean suddenly realized he'd spaced out. "Are you listening?"

"Yeah," he said, trying to sound self-assured.

"Good. Anyway, Felix doesn't see very well, so—!"

"Sorry, but," Jean turned to the rows of nests, "Which one is Felix? How am I supposed to keep track of this?"

Elle tapped on the papers he was holding, and he glanced down at it for the first time, finding that the sheet on top had a grid with names written in each of the boxes. "Oh," he said sheepishly.

"I know it probably doesn't seem like the most interesting job in the world to you," Elle said, sounding as though she'd said the same thing several times before, "But these birds really are a valuable part of the military, and taking care of them is important."

"I never said it wasn't," Jean said defensively. Elle said nothing, turning away. "What are you gonna do?"

"I have to take care of something else," she said without looking back at him, "Everything you need to know is in the packet, but if you really need help, I'll be in the garrison offices." Without another word, she walked out of the coop, shutting the door behind her, and leaving Jean alone and surrounded by warbling pigeons.

Taking a deep breath, Jean began flipping through the papers, reading where the food was stored, feeding procedures, how to clean out the coop, on and on, until the words all began to run together and he set the papers down in the corner, rolled up his sleeves, and got to work.

Sasha was probably dishing out whatever she'd pilfered from their superior officer's supplies, and Marco and Connie were probably scolding her while enjoying some of the food. Jean cursed under his breath, angry at Eren for being aggravating and himself for getting carried away. Now he was stuck tending to pigeons, alone, for hours at a time every day for the rest of the week.

"Are you really all that smart?" he asked Samson, who stared up at him unblinkingly. Jean realized he was talking to a pigeon and quickly got back to work, eager to finish for the day.

*

Elle came back to relieve him after what felt like an eternity of scraping bird waste off of wood, and he felt his already thinly-worn patience rapidly disappearing when she giggled at the sight of him. "What?" he snapped.

"Nothing," she said, "Sorry. It's just that you looked so serious when I came in." She walked over to the nests, pushing the hay in an empty cube around with one finger. "Nice and clean. You did well," she said, sounding impressed.

"Well, yeah. I wasn't going to just mess around," Jean scoffed, leaving out that he wouldn't  _because Shadis would kill him._

"You really worked hard," she said, and then paused, looking down thoughtfully. When she looked up at Jean again, she was smiling. "I'm sorry, I think I might have misjudged you earlier. You're not such a bad guy after all."

"Thank you…?" Jean said uneasily, thinking back and trying to figure out what he'd done to make him seem like an awful person and coming up empty.

"You're done for today," Elle told him, "I'll take it from here. I'll be sure to let Instructor Shadis know you did a good job."

For the first time that day, Jean gave a relieved smile. "Thanks," he said.

He didn't miss the way Elle looked away, face flushed ever so slightly, but he didn't comment on it. "See you tomorrow," she told him as he left the loft.

 _Tomorrow,_  Jean thought, inwardly groaning, that's right, he had to come back. Then again, despite the embarrassment, he thought he'd take it over the stables, and at least this way he was guaranteed to not have to look at Eren's face for a few hours a day. Maybe the pigeon post wouldn't be so bad after all.


	2. Chapter 2

"Dude, I heard you cleaned up pigeon crap for three hours yesterday," was the first thing out of Connie's mouth the following morning.

Jean rested his head in his hands over the table, embarrassed. "Please shut up."

"And you gotta do it again today, right?"

"Connie."

"I'm sure it wasn't all bad," Marco chimed in.

Jean shrugged. "It wasn't," he admitted, "Honestly, it beats the stables. There's this girl who works at the post, too. She's a little weird and I apparently offended her somehow at first, but we're good now."

"A girl?" Connie asked, angling for details.

Jean didn't bite. "Honestly, I think Jeager got off worse than me."

"What, you're not even gonna tell us what she looks like?"

"In some ways, he did," Marco nodded, "He certainly has the more physically demanding tasks. People keep talking about the pigeon post, though. I guess getting assigned there is something to be ashamed of."

Jean frowned. "Why? It's not that bad. Besides, I heard the pigeons are actually pretty useful. There's this one that works with the Survey Corps, and I guess it's helped out a lot in the past with the Titans and all."

There was a short lapse in conversation. "We're talking about pigeons, right?" Connie asked, "Pigeons fighting Titans? Do they get little green coats, too?"

"They don't fight," Jean said, and then stopped himself. He didn't know why he was getting so defensive. As he was trying to think of a safer topic, he caught a glimpse of Eren walking into the mess hall out of the corner of his eye. He looked exhausted, shuffling his feet, eyes still cloudy with sleep, and Jean couldn't help himself. "Hey, Jeager, how're the stables going?" he called.

Eren shot him a look without much fire, obviously too tired to get angry, but Mikasa more than made up for it, glaring hellfire across the room and making Jean's mouth snap shut. She turned away and continued following Eren, and Jean groaned, leaning over the table again. If she didn't hate his guts before….

"Do you ever think that you maybe shouldn't do things like that?" Marco asked sagely.

Jean sighed. "Sometimes."

Elle was in good spirits when Jean arrived, humming to herself as she sat in the grass outside of the coop, holding a scroll open on her lap with a writing quill in hand and a jar of ink on the ground beside her. He noticed Samson sunning himself not far away, seated in the grass and basking in the warm light, though he seemed to become alert when Jean approached.

"Good afternoon," Elle greeted pleasantly, "Don't mind me; it's so nice out today that I wanted to work outside."

"What are you doing?" Jean asked, glancing down at the parchment.

"Enciphering a message," she said with a smile, "You can look, if you want."

Jean crouched beside her, looking over her shoulder, and squinted at the mess of letters scrawled on the page.

_LHYZBOUMHZUFLKKMRHUZIFULRGLRGZRMZHSAMFLUKTHZUSAMRMJSMJQMKLSLZRIOYLUMDZIIMRKSAOSYZBSOWMTOITZR  
SAMGOUULTZRFMELMVMTAMLTUMSLUMKORKAMHUMPBMRSEYGZMTZBSHZURMTSLRGIOSMULOETTZSALTXZBEKRZSOUZBTMTBTQLDLZR_

"I give up," he said, glancing at her, "What am I looking at?"

"Do you know anything about ciphers?"

Jean shook his head.

"It's fun, once you get the hang of it," she said, "There are a variety of ciphers used for important communications in Wall Sina among parliament members, for example. I know all of them, because I encipher their messages."

Jean stared down at the string of letters. "Wow," he said, "So you can read this?"

"Of course I can," Elle said with a smile, "I came up with the key."

"What's it say?"

She laughed. "I can't tell you that," she said, "It's sensitive information."

Jean chuckled, though his smile dropped a moment later, curiosity getting the best of him. "I don't get it," he said, "If you do secret codes for the government, that's pretty important, right? Why do you spend so much time working at the pigeon post?"

"The pigeon post is equally important," Elle said, sounding offended at his insinuation, "Perhaps even more important. Enciphered messages are hand-delivered to Sina along with one of the birds, and it's up to them to fly back quickly so information is relayed in a timely manner. They do half of all the work." Apparently done writing, she set the quill in the top of the ink vial and kept the scroll taut to let the letters dry. "Can I ask you something?" she said quietly, "Why do you think that the pigeon post isn't important?"

"I don't think it's  _not_  important," Jean said, "Just maybe not  _as_  important as other things."

Elle's expression turned solemn as she looks into the distance, over the rolling, green hills behind the garrison offices. "You were told that the pigeon post is an embarrassment, right?" she asked, "Not by any one person in particular, but by everyone. They all say that, so everyone has started to think that way. They say it's an eyesore and a waste of resources. But that's not true." She glanced back down at the parchment, beginning to roll it up.

"My father is a garrison officer, and he writes ciphers like me. He's the one who taught me how to do it," she told him, "Before I was born, there was talk of getting rid of the pigeon post, but he petitioned for it to be kept in operation because he saw its worth. He was mocked and harassed for it, but he didn't back down. In the end, I think everyone knows he made the right choice; a few years ago, there was a disastrous Survey Corps expedition that ended with the number of casualties being larger than the number of soldiers who returned alive. There was a lot of valuable information they'd collected on Titans during the expedition, however, and even though many of the soldiers who wrote that information down didn't make it, their words did."

Elle blushed, looking away. "Sorry, I didn't mean to talk your ear off."

"It's fine," Jean said, "I guess I should apologize. I didn't really get why this stuff was so important, but it makes sense now." He laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. "I mean, I'm still not really fond of birds or anything, but the code stuff is pretty cool. Could I learn that?"

"Do you want to?" Elle asked, eyes lighting up, "It's really easy, actually. Hey, that could make for some great motivation!" Tying a thin string around the parchment to keep it rolled up, she gathered her ink and quill and stood up. "I know you don't exactly look forward to coming here," she said, "So how about this? After you're done cleaning the coops for the second time, I'll teach you a little bit about ciphers. Does that sound fair?"

"Sure." Elle looked ecstatic, smiling to herself as she glanced away, doubtlessly thinking of what to teach him first, and Jean felt a little self-conscious suddenly; she looked cute like that. "I'll, uh, take care of the birds now," he said, and she nodded, walking away back towards the garrison offices.

Jean noticed Samson get up and waddle into the coop behind him and chuckled at the way the bird waltzed in right past him. "Who belongs to who around here, anyway?" he asked, "I saw the way you were glaring me down earlier. Don't worry, I'm being nice to your human." With a flutter of wings, Samson flew up into his nest, but Jean noticed another bird had already taken up residence in his spot. He expected Samson, as the bigger of the two, to take offense and puff himself up, but he settled in next to the other bird. Jean glanced down at the roster of birds curiously and found that Samson's box had both his name and "Eunice" written on it.

"So you must be Eunice," he said thoughtfully, examining the bird sitting beside Samson. Eunice was noticeably smaller than Samson, and her feathers were more consistently ash gray, though with speckles of brown on her wings and neck. She, too, had a large, crusty white growth on her beak, though Jean had begun to assume this was normal.

"That's your girlfriend, huh?" he asked Samson, who didn't so much as coo in response.

He found among the numerous instructional papers a list that had each of the bird's names in alphabetical order along with basic information, including their ages and expeditions they'd gone on. Samson was by far the oldest, the only one at fourteen years of age, with the most missions to his name, and Jean glanced up at the bird in disbelief, surprised to find that it was almost as old as he was. Looking back at the list, he found that Eunice was only a couple years younger.

Further down, he found Martha, who was noted to be Eunice and Samson's "daughter," a term that immediately alerted Jean to the fact that the notes must have been written by Elle, as she seemed the type to use such human descriptors for the birds.

For whatever reason, going through the information sheet was far more interesting than Jean cared to admit, and he found himself going back to it between putting out food and cleaning the coop. If Jean hadn't known better, he'd assume he was looking at a list of Survey Corps soldiers and their accomplishments. By the end of the hour, he thought he had most of the names memorized and found he could put a name to every face—er, beak?—when he glanced from the name list to the nests. Elle's notes were meticulous in describing physical characteristics and charting the lives of the birds she'd been around for years. While it struck Jean initially as a little weird, and perhaps the mark of someone who didn't have many friends, he also understood just how much the birds meant to her.

The time passed much more quickly than he realized, and soon enough, Elle was poking her head in the coop door to check on him. She came over to inspect the nests, smiling in approval. "You're really getting the hang of this. I can tell, because it's quieter in here than yesterday. I think they like you."

Jean chuckled. "I don't think Maxwell likes me very much. He doesn't ever leave his nest when I come in."

Elle paused, studying his face for a moment, before her smile grew wider. Jean realized he'd just admitted to having learned their names and he felt his face heat up as he tried to come up with excuse, but he ended up laughing instead; there wasn't anything to be embarrassed about, after all.

He was doing something important.

"The cipher I used earlier is a type of monoalphabetic substitution," Elle said.

Jean felt odd sitting in the garrison office of some random soldier who wasn't there, but Elle insisted it was fine, ushering him over to the desk and sitting on the other side with a roll of parchment stretched out between them. "Uh. Okay."

"All you have to do," she said, writing the letters of the alphabet across the top in neatly printed handwriting, "Is substitute every letter with a different letter. So, for example, we could say that "O" will stand for "A," and "F" will stand for "B," and so on." She began to write a second string of letters beneath the first. "Now, you've created your key," she said, "You can write whatever you want using it, and unless someone knows what it is, they won't know what you wrote."

Jean stared down at the paper in awe. "I get it," he said, "That's pretty neat. It's kind of simple, actually. Are there people who could crack the code even if you didn't tell them what it was?"

"It's possible to do," Elle said, "But even if someone knew that I used monoalphabetic substitution, there are so many different keys that I could have used to write it that it would take a long time to figure it out." She smiles. "To my knowledge, no one's figured me out before."

" _Almost_ no one," came a voice from the doorway, and Jean shot out of his chair in surprise, turning around to find a man in a garrison uniform standing there, arms folded over his chest. Jean began to panic at the deep frown on the man's face, worried that he was going to get in more trouble, but the man was looking right past him. "Eleanor," he said sternly, "What have I told you about using my office when I'm gone?"

Elle smiled sheepishly. "Not to do it?"

"Precisely. You have your own office now, so you might as well use it."

She frowned but nodded, and the man's attention turned to Jean. "Cadet Kirstein, right?" he asked, and Jean nodded, "I'm Dennis Hayes, captain of 12th garrison brigade. Shadis told me there was a trainee assigned to the pigeon post for the week. Do you have things pretty well figured out by now?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good." He cleared his throat. "Well, if you two don't mind giving me my office back…."

Jean hurried to the door, muttering apologies, but he lingered in the hall when he saw Elle taking her time, huffing as she rolled up the parchment to take with her. "My own office," she scoffed, "It's barely a closet. At least you have enough room to stretch out your arms."

Captain Hayes shook his head but affectionately ruffled her hair. "Stop your grumbling," he said, "You should be happy you have one at all." As she made her way to the door, he said, "Don't keep your mother waiting; go home as soon as you're done here."

"Okay," she called over her shoulder, closing the door behind her. She didn't meet Jean's eye, apparently embarrassed.

"Your dad?" he guessed, laughing a little when she just nodded. "So, he can break your codes?"

"For now," Elle said confidently, "I'll come up with something he can't figure out eventually."

"I dunno," Jean shrugged, "Maybe I should be learning ciphers from him instead." Elle looked sincerely offended for half a second before she grinned and then began to laugh. Jean found it was contagious. He still reassured her, "I'm kidding. I'd rather learn it from you, anyway," and Elle blushed again.

"I'm glad," she said, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear, "I'll see you tomorrow, then?"

"Yeah."

"Oh," Elle stopped him before he left, handing him the parchment, "Go ahead and take this."

Jean glanced down at the paper, then up at her. "You sure? Is that okay?"

"It's fine," Elle said, smiling, "You should practice a little bit. Maybe it can be our key, and we can write notes to each other."

"Alright," Jean said, holding it carefully, "Thanks."

Again, Elle's smile was large and warm, and Jean found himself thinking she really did look cute like that.

As it turned out, the pigeon post wasn't bad at all. Jean almost felt grateful to Shadis for giving him the assignment, even if it was intended to be a punishment. Which reminded him that he only had until the end of the week—just four more days—and then he'd be done. He would be glad to have his free time back.

And yet, for some reason, he felt just the slightest hint of disappointment at the thought that he wouldn't be able to go back to the pigeon post.


	3. Chapter 3

Privacy was hard to come by in the trainee barracks.

Jean's attempts at finding a quiet, unoccupied space to practice using the cipher key Elle had made for him proved fruitless all evening. He wasn't sure why, but he felt somewhat possessive of the roll of parchment and the code written on it, unwilling to share it with just any set of curious eyes that happened past. It was childish, he knew, but he found himself thinking it would be fun to write encrypted notes back and forth, things that nobody else would be able to read.

In the end, he just waited until dark, sneaking off to the mess hall after curfew. Lighting a candle on the table, he unrolled the scroll, studying it closely as he wondered what he would write. A thank you note would probably be the best way to start; something simple, and a way to express his gratitude to her for making his assignment bearable. Spreading out a new sheet of parchment, he tried to work out a message. "So 'D' will be written as 'Y,'" he mumbled to himself, starting on the first word, but he barely had three letters written down when he thought he heard the floorboards creak and whipped around, fearing Shadis was making the rounds.

Instead, he found Bertolt standing silently in the dark, and even though he knew he wasn't in trouble—yet—he still jumped in surprise.

"Fucking hell, Bertolt," he spat, "You scared the shit out of me. What are you doing?"

The taller boy gave a sheepish smile. "Trouble sleeping," he murmured. Jean knew he was telling the truth by the dark circles rimming his eyes and felt a twinge of sympathy. Bertolt was always nervous, sweating and glancing around anxiously like he was expecting titans to come bursting in at any minute. Jean had thought before that he must have come from Shiganshina like Armin and the others, considering he acted nearly as skittish.

He was so startled by the sudden intrusion that he didn't think to hide what he was doing, only realizing when Bertolt had already come over the table and noticed the scroll with the key written on it. He sat opposite Jean and peered down at Elle's scrawl curiously, asking, "What's that?"

Jean restrained himself from uttering a biting,  _Nothing,_  reminding himself that snapping at his comrades and picking fights had put him in hot water plenty of times already. "It's a, uh," he paused, "Monoalphabetic cipher. I think."

"A cipher?" Bertolt repeated curiously, suddenly becoming animated.

"Yeah," Jean said, "You know a lot about it?"

Bertolt glanced up from the parchment to Jean, face flushing slightly as though embarrassed. "Uh. Just a little," he stammered, "Um. It's a hobby, I guess."

"You and Elle'd get along well, I bet," Jean said, looking back down at the key as he returned to the task at hand, "The girl at the pigeon post, I mean. She taught me about it, since she does all the secret code stuff for the government, I guess."

"So her name's Elle."

Jean shot up straight and looked back over his shoulder at the doorway, where Marco and Connie were standing. Groaning, Jean leaned over the table, covering the paper with the key almost childishly. "Is everyone just up wandering around?" he grumbled.

"Not everyone," Marco said as he and Connie took the two empty seats beside Jean, "We just noticed you sneak out and wondered if everything was okay."

"What are you doing, anyway?" Connie asked, looking pointedly at the paper spread beneath him, "Is that a love letter or something?"

Jean sighed tiredly, wondering if it was time to give up and go to bed. "No. Just a thank you note."

"Why are you writing a thank you note with a cipher?" Bertolt asked, and Jean was honestly surprised to hear him talk with so many people in the room at the same time.

"Because I want to," he sputtered, almost defensively, "Look, guys, can I just have a minute to myself, please?"

"Whoa, we just got here," Connie argued, "And what's a cipher?"

Jean nearly packed up his things and left right that moment, but decided he didn't want to be interrupted. Reluctantly, he sat up straight, revealing the key written on the paper. "It's like this," he said, hoping an explanation would get rid of everyone, "You substitute every letter of the alphabet with a different letter, and then you use your new alphabet to write messages."

"I thought you were taking care of pigeons?"

"Well, yeah," Jean said, "That's pretty much all I do. But the girl I work with—!"

"Elle?" Connie interrupts.

Jean frowned. "Yeah, Elle. She works at the pigeon post, too, but her main job is writing messages in secret codes."

"Is that an actual code used by the government?" Bertolt asked.

Jean shook his head. "I don't think so. She just made it up on the spot for us to use." Bertolt, Connie and Marco still looked interested and showed no signs of leaving, so Jean slowly began to roll up the parchment, taking his candle with him. "I'm just gonna go," he said, ignoring Connie's protests and Marco trying to tell him to give Jean some space. Bertolt didn't say anything, standing up to leave himself, and Jean gave up for the night, deciding he'd go back to sleep. If he didn't get any rest, there'd be hell to pay in the morning when he'd be too tired to do any of his drills.

He'd just have to try again tomorrow.

*

They were practicing with the omnidirectional gear bright and early, and Jean lamented not getting more sleep, finding it difficult to concentrate. He lost balance just as Shadis shouted for him, flipping onto his face and becoming tangled in the cords, and very pointedly ignored what had to be Eren's snickering from somewhere nearby.

"I don't know what you're laughing about," he muttered, "This is what you look like every time you try."

He was still grumbling as he made his way over to Shadis until he realize the person standing with him had patches with the green unicorn emblem—Military Police. He hurriedly picked up the pace, straightening up his uniform and brushing the dirt off of the front and silently hoped they hadn't seen him fall.

"Yes, sir?" he said when he reached them. Shadis gestured to the stranger who nodded and stepped forward. He was tall with his black hair cut uniformly short.

"Cadet Kirstein?" he asked.

Jean nodded.

"There's talk going around that you know a thing or two about ciphers."

Jean glanced back at where the others were practicing, knowing immediately that it had to have been Connie who'd blabbed; Marco was too considerate, and Bertolt just wasn't talkative. It shouldn't have mattered, but he felt a bit nervous with the grave tone the officer was using. "I don't know very much, sir," he admitted, "I've just started learning."

"But you've already made your own key to encode messages, correct?"

Jean glanced at the man uneasily. "Well," he started to say, but was cut off when the man flashed a smile.

"That's very impressive," he said, "That sort of skill would go to waste in most branches, but you'd be of great use to the Military Police Brigade. I hope you keep practicing."

Elated, Jean fought hard to keep a stupid smile off of his face, nodding as he said, "I will, sir."

"Good. Keep it up, and there might just be a position waiting for you when you graduate."

The man left after that, and Jean was dismissed back to training. He'd been aiming for the Military Police since enlistment; knowing he was close to his goal put him in such a good mood that he forgot all about yelling at Connie for spreading around his business, or being angry at Eren, or even how strange it was that the Military Police would be so concerned about a cadet who knew codes.

*

Jean didn't drag his feet on his way to the pigeon post. Learning ciphers with Elle had turned from a welcome distraction to a potential way into the Military Police, and he was eager to learn as much as he could in the short time he had left working with her. His eagerness saw him arrive much earlier than usual, but his pace slowed and he came to a complete stop, idling between a few trees when he saw someone he doesn't recognize lurking behind the coop wearing a green coat, the hood up and obscuring their features. Elle exited the coop a moment later, glancing around a bit nervously. Jean saw a small cage in her hand and Samson standing inside, something tied to his foot. She handed the bird off to the stranger, who tucked it beneath their coat and walked off in the opposite direction.

Jean wasn't sure what to make of the exchange; it looked suspicious, for sure, but he didn't know exactly what had happened. Despite the figure's hasty departure, he caught the crossed wings of the Survey Corps on their back, and his imagination went wild with speculation. Could it have been a hand-off of sensitive information meant for someone in Wall Sina? He remembered Elle mentioning that she, or rather her pigeons, worked closely with the Survey Corps, and figured she'd be eager to tell him about it. Hoping to find out, Jean came out from where he'd been hiding and approached the coop. Elle seemed startled when she noticed him.

"Oh, Jean," she exclaimed, but she gave him a big smile, "You're early today."

"Yeah. Looking forward to more code stuff," he said. He noticed the corners of her lips twitch and her smile became tense.

"Right," she said, "Well, go on in, I'll wait here for you." She sat in the grass with her back against the bright red planks of the pigeon coop, massaging her temples with one hand. She was acting odd, and combined with what Jean had seen earlier, it was making him a little nervous.

"You okay?" he asked.

She glanced up at him with a painfully forced smile. "I'm good," she said, "I was just up late last night, so I'm a little tired." Apparently not feeling talkative, she turned away again, and Jean reluctantly went into the coop.

Jean's curiosity was killing him. He tried to focus on what he was doing, carefully avoiding stepping on Felix, an aging, brown pigeon who insisted on following him around the coop, and pouring a bag of grains and seeds into the feeder. Eunice, he couldn't help but notice, was sitting by herself in the space she usually shared with Samson, and she looked a little lonely.

At least, Jean thought she did. He had obviously been around the birds for too long if he was imagining various emotions in their beady, little eyes.

He emerged from the coop an hour later, finding Elle with a smaller pigeon seated comfortably in the folds of her dress on her lap, allowing her to stroke its feathers with one finger. "Done," he said, and she startled to attention again but managed a smile, gently shifting so the bird got the hint and began to move. "I noticed Eunice was by herself, though," he added, "And I haven't seen Samson around yet."

When she stood up, the little bird waddled into the open door of the coop, and Elle avoided Jean's eyes, watching it walk away. "Really? He was here earlier," she said, "Must be off getting twigs. I've been letting them bring things back to make themselves comfortable lately."

Jean nodded, careful to keep his suspicion off of his face. She was lying; he'd seen her hand Samson off to someone. He's not sure he would have caught the lie if he hadn't seen her do it, either. Elle didn't sound nervous when she spoke, but she'd pointedly avoided looking him in the eye. Jean told himself he was being ridiculous, and that the level of secrecy must have been standard for secret communications. But there was something about it that bothered him, and he couldn't help but worry a little that something else was going on.

"Anyway," Elle said, meeting his gaze with a genuine smile, "You wanted to learn more about ciphers, right?"

"Yeah."

"Did you practice with the one I gave you?"

His smile fell. "Uh. Not yet," he admitted, "Sorry. I was going to write you a message, but never got around to it."

"That's alright," she said, beginning to walk with him towards the garrison offices, "I'm sure you won't have trouble with it. I actually wanted to show you something different today, just to mix things up."

This time, they headed for a different room, one on the ground floor of the garrison building situated at the end of a hallway. Jean had thought that she'd been exaggerating, but it really wasn't much larger than a broom closet, and had likely been one before being clumsily repurposed as an office. Elle squeezed between the wall and the far end of the desk, and Jean stood opposite her, watching as she reached for something on a bookshelf.

"This is called a diagraph cipher," she said, opening the book in her hands to a certain page and spreading it out between them. Jean squinted at the tiny scrawl, letters written into rows of boxes. The alphabet ran along the top and down the left side, with combinations of two letters in all of the other boxes.

"This looks really confusing," he muttered.

"It takes a bit of getting used to," Elle said, "When you write a message, you break up the whole thing into pairs of letters. So I could say," she paused, quickly writing on the corner of the page,  _'This is how you use diagraph.'_  "So I take this, and I break it up for the code." Beneath it, she wrote,  _'TH IS IS HO WY OU US ED IA GR AP HX.'_

"So the 'X' is because there isn't anything, but it has to be two letters?" Jean asked.

"Exactly. So then, you go down the line and match up each combination with the correct box, and you can encode the message." She handed him the ink quill and grabbed a fresh sheet of paper. "Try enciphering it," she said.

Jean looked down at the paper with wide eyes, a little overwhelmed by all of the letters running together on the page, but reminded himself of his earlier encounter with the Military Police and decided to try. "The first one is 'TH,'" he said, "So I go along the top and find 'T'….and then I go down the column until I get to where it meets 'H'…." He paused, hesitantly writing down 'GZ,' and looked up at Elle nervously.

Her eyes lit up with excitement greater than he'd seen on her face before. "You got it!" she exclaimed, "That's all there is to it! Now you know to do two different ciphers."

Jean laughed a little, excited himself. "Thanks, Elle," he said, "This is really cool. I might actually have a shot at becoming an MP thanks to you."

Her smile fell immediately. Jean realized he might've said the wrong thing and opened his mouth to apologize, but Elle spoke first. "Have you been approached by any of the Military Police?" She spoke quietly, gaze flicking over his shoulder to where the door to the room was shut.

It was a simple question, but Jean struggled to answer. Elle had a serious expression that he hadn't seen on her face before, and tension hung heavily over them, having appeared seemingly from nowhere. "Yes?" he said uncertainly.

"What did they say?"

"That they like people who know about ciphers."

Elle's frown deepened and she slammed the book shut, putting it back up on the shelf and taking the paper from Jean, carefully folding it up before ripping it into tiny pieces. Jean stared, speechless, until she'd finished and returned her attention to him. "Are you okay?" he asked, unsure of what else to say.

Elle didn't speak for a long time, staring down at the table, before she nodded. "I'm fine," she said, "But that's enough for today. You should probably go back now."

"I didn't mean to upset you," he said quickly, "I get the feeling you don't really like the MPs very much, so I'm sorry if I—!"

He stopped when Elle met his eyes, her solemn expression replaced by one that seemed sad. "It's alright, Jean," she said softly, "You mean well, and I know that."

"Can you talk to me about…" He paused. "Uh. Whatever it is you're upset about? Or is it some kind of secret?"

"It wouldn't be right for me to talk about it with you," she said, "I don't want to influence any decisions you make in the future. You should do whatever it is you want to do."

"It's more than that, though," Jean insisted, "You don't just dislike the MPs, you have some kind of problem with them, right?"

Elle smiled sadly. "You should really get going," she urged. Reluctantly, Jean went to the door of Elle's tiny office, glancing back at her over his shoulder once before leaving, and found her timidly look away. He was disappointed and a little embarrassed, knowing he'd have to come back for three more days with things horribly awkward and tense between them, and angry that he didn't know what she was so upset about in the first place.

He thought he'd try writing a message to her, definitely an apology note—even if he's not really sure what he did wrong—and maybe they could go back to normal after that. He was so caught up in his inner frustration and planning as he slipped out the door and hurried down the hall that he didn't notice Elle's father, Captain Hayes, standing behind it, arms crossed over his chest and a frown on his face, and a figure in a green coat standing beside them watching his hasty escape.

"Well, this is a problem," Captain Hayes muttered.

The Survey Corps member beside him shook their head. "It doesn't have to be."


End file.
